


parked car

by zagspect



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Gen, delighted to see that tag pop up, digging ones heels into ones own coffin, frustration powerlessness holding oneself down, like yes! his car IS in this fic in fact!, shadow girls lore OR IS IT, trying to drag others down and grasping at nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29468811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zagspect/pseuds/zagspect
Summary: A cornered rat will turn around and try to catch another rat. It doesn't work.
Relationships: Himemiya Anthy & Kagee Shoujo | Shadow Play Girls, Himemiya Anthy & Ohtori Akio
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	parked car

**Author's Note:**

> im on that 'kanae was a past champion' theorizing brain. just so you know.

Really, really, is there anywhere more powerless than the passenger's seat of a car, key still in and the power running, when you don't have a license?

"Wait here," Akio had said roughly, and left to go 'sort something out' (which is code for _ask faculty members about the wellbeing of the students_ , which is code for _figure out who would make the best potential duelists_ , which is triple code for _have sex with Kanae's geography teacher_ ). Slammed the door behind him. Frustrations have been at their highest, now that they are again forced to really _look_ at each other with no duelists in the way. Just the two of them, or, right now, just her and his car. The time between cycles is the worst.

After this cycle, especially. She thought...

It doesn't matter what she thought. She sighs too heavy and feels her breath catch on a thousand swords.

So now Anthy is left to wait- the air conditioner is on, at least. Who knows when she will get home. Might run out of time to do her homework, as if her grades matter. She turns on the radio, which she is not supposed to do, but Akio was in too much of a rush to bother saying so, and he _did_ leave the key in. The radio's been left on that station with those girls who do the quiz shows. Sometimes Akio calls in while he drives, wins the prize because of course he does, and a cardboard cutout of whatever was promised shows up at the tower. They have paper barbecue grills, paper teddy bears, paper lawnmowers. Call in, they say, call in! Anthy picks up the car phone and dials. This Akio did say before he left, _don't touch my phone_ , but he's not there with her right now. The key is still- uselessly, to the license unhaving - in the ignition. What's to stop her?

_"Ah! Mr. End of the World, again?"_

"No," Anthy says. "Why, who's that? Such a strange name."

 _"Ooohh, a new caller!"_ says the girl, dodging the question. Whoever answered sounds excited. As with all shadows, Anthy can't tell the silhouettes of these girls apart without seeing them. 

_"Did he lose his phone, I wonder? I wonder, did our sweet, innocent caller steal some guy's phone?"_

_"Wouldn't be the last time!"_

_"Doesn't matter! Can you introduce yourself?"_

"Anthy Himemiya. I'm in my first year of high school."

_"Nice to meet you! Where are you headed from here, college? First year of middle school?"_

Second-to-last year of middle school. She just has a feeling.

"None of the above."

_"Intriguing! Perfect, perfect, let's start! The prize this time is: magical power that can change the world!"_

_"The theme is, 'Huuh~?! That's a personal question!'"_

Anthy can never tell if the drama club dislikes her, or pities her, or even how many of them there are. They don't stick around long enough. If you catch a mouse you can name it and recognize it, but if all you've got to go on are the suspicious nibbles on your box of cookies then you can't really tell much at all. 

She wishes she had asked Chu-Chu to come with her. Now _there's_ someone who knows his creatures.

_"Question one! Who's higher in the food chain, the lion or the jellyfish!"_

Anthy stays quiet.

_"Yeah, yeah, exactly! Apples and oranges. We'll mail you the prize if you keep getting them right like this! Where does it go to?"_

"Chairman's tower," she says into the phone sweetly. "I'm sure you know the address?"

 _"Ahhhhh! Living in luxury!"_ , says the radio host. _"Fun fact! The savannah kills even more than the lion. You know how many animal corpses are in it, if you go digging a little?"_

_"Ooooooh, scandal!"_

_"Now! What's higher in the food chain, the jellyfish or the savannah!"_

"The savannah."

She says this grimly.

_"BZZT! Jellyfish don't live there!"_

"But if one did?" asks Anthy. She refuses to let go now that she's caught onto this, this rat's tail of a thought. And if the untouchable _did_ get caught? She wonders for a moment what it would take for one of these girls to duel. Advertising the elevator in Nemuro hall as a recording studio, maybe.

_"Well, have you ever seen a jellyfish corpse buried under a tree? Of course not. NEXT! Which of the following get off scot-free even if they shoot someone! A: a photographer. B: a star. C: bamboo."_

"D. All of the above."

_"Correct! One more question: how are you going to get home?"_

Anthy stares out the window, squints up into the building she's outside. The curtains on a top floor office are drawn, so what's going on in there is obvious. 

To add insult to injury, the tower is, like, two blocks away. She can see it from here. She could just _walk_ there, if she weren't in a car. 

But Anthy has run enough games to know better than to play.

"Huuh?" she asks, pretending to sound unsure. "That's a personal question..."

The radio plays some triumphant little tune.

_"And that's our quiz! I think you learned soooo much about us, right? And we learned a tonnnn about you! We'll send you your new abilities in the mail! Thanks for li-"_

She turns the dial. That's enough radio for now. She leaves it on a station that Ohtori doesn't support.

An hour in, she gets curious again. Turns it on, listens to snatches of words in between indecipherable static. News, or music, or some read-out story. She can't tell from the slivers she gets. _Car insurance_ \- that's a snippet of advertisement, maybe. _Here's the weath-thanks for your-back to the music you lo-today, Janua-_

She turns it off.

Akio emerges to drive them both home well after midnight. He's in better spirits- temporarily satisfied spirits, duel planning spirits, maybe, I need alone time I said leave me be I need to _think_ , Anthy, don't _distract_ _me_ , spirits- the best kind.

"You changed the radio station." There's a smile in his voice. She did, after all, stay in the car.

" _And_ I tracked mud on the floor."

"How cruel of you."

It'll matter later, when he's in the mood to be angry. For now, there is nothing to stop her from yawning her way to bed, nothing to stop her from taking Kanae's old half of the bunk bed while it's still here. Her head hurts when it hits the pillow.

There's a package on it, some sort of cylinder shape. To Anthy Himemiya, Chairman's Tower. She rips it open.

It's a flashlight. There are some plastic squares in the envelope, too- little shapes printed on them. Flowers, swords, stars, and if you hold them up over the flashlight and turn on the light you can see them projected on the wall-

Is this some kind of prank? Are they making fun of her- or making an offer? She can't decide which is worse. She fishes the batteries out and puts them away in a desk drawer, and dreams of using quicksand to build a bridge across quicksand. She drowns, of course, but so does everyone else.

**Author's Note:**

> if my "shadow girls: how do they function?" lore headcanons are clear and follow-along-able whatsoever then i have failed


End file.
